When she left school she stayed at home all day. I used to walk the dog along the path bordering the golf course and I would see her, most mornings, sitting in the summerhouse—sometimes reading, sometimes just staring into space. It seemed unnatural. When I was your age, I would say to her in my mind, I was preparing to go to college. I did not say in my mind what I really remembered: when I was your age I was in love, I was alive. That is not the kind of thing the old say to the young.